Samson & Delilah

Aaron “Hair” Wimberley reached down into his shorts and pulled out a big, honking win in the Cat 2 race at the Manhattan Beach Grand Prix. Not bad for a guy who, a couple of years ago, told me that he was “a Cat 3-level rider in terms of threshold power.”

Whatever.

Aaron’s now been booted upstairs to Cat 1, and he won this race with style, speed, caginess, courage, and flat out skills. It’s terrible talking to Aaron after a race (or before one, for that matter) because it’s like listening to a physics professor describe why a ball drops when you let go.

“Great race, Aaron!” I innocently said.

“Thanks!”

“The other guys in the race were singing your praises.”

“Well, on the last corner you had to know the line and understand that the barriers were going to be on the lateral twice-removed plane of motion that would give you the acceleration at about ninety degrees, and given my weight and the wheels I was running and the rotation of the Earth plus those farts that the Surf City dude was blowing, you could figure that acceleration times mass plus the torque on the lateral angle of spin would put me about eighteen degrees under the first guy’s wheel, and … ”

I dozed off, and woke up just at the point where he was explaining how the moon’s tidal pull had moved enough of his voluminous, luxurious hair to the inside of the curve and given him enough kick for the win.

“Wow,” I said, wondering when I could ask for five bucks to buy a beer.

There’s not a lot you need to say when someone pulls out a signature win at one of the biggest races in America, but there’s a shit-ton you need to say when they pull out (another) win at the least-known race in SoCal, the TELO training crit.

Aaron wins this thing almost every week, and he wins it after attacking into the wind, dropping the field, riding breakaways for the entire race and beating his breakaway companions or, if caught, winning the field sprint. He’s amazing.

On Saturdays, the chubby dude who used to come unhitched at Trump is not twenty pounds lighter and wins the Switchbacks, out-climbs the climbers, and pokes a stick in your eye when you’re on the rivet by saying, “Why so serious, Wanker?” On the NPR he smokes the sprint, rolls with breaks, and hits the front at speeds designed to crack your spirit, which it does.

Unlike other SoCal fastmen, Aaron doesn’t have a huge team to help him. His supporting cast usually includes one or two guys, which sounds kind of thin until you learn that his wingman is usually Derek Brauch, a canny, lethal weapon who usually makes the split or who can be counted on to excel in road races and hard, challenging crits.

I’d congratulate the bastard in person, but since he’s already pretty sure he’s awesome, why bother? Saying it here on the Interwebs is enough. You rock, wankstar.